Marvel Database
Don't have an account?
Register
Advertisement
Register
Marvel Database
Marvel Database
317,458
pages
in: Policies, Framework

Marvel Database:Naming Conventions

View source

The Marvel Database contains tens of thousands of articles and images. In order to keep the site organized, a uniform set of rules is used for naming articles and files. These conventions attempt to cover the vast majority of situations, though exceptions may arise. The conventions are not optional since often unseen aspects of the site's inner workings depend heavily on consistency.

General Conventions

  • Begin pagenames with a capital letter. No matter what the circumstance or word that may start the article title. This is a software requirement.
  • Do not capitalize prepositions, conjunctions and articles in a pagename unless they are the first word (see above). These include but are not limited to:
  • and
  • at
  • by
  • de
  • for
  • from
  • in
  • of
  • on
  • or
  • the
  • to
  • van
  • von
  • Exception: Names should follow the capitalization style used on sources.
  • Capitalize every word in the title (except as above). The convention prevents the confusion of whether certain words should be capitalized or not. (eg. Senator_Kelly_for_President, not Senator_Kelly_for_president)
  • Do not capitalize file extensions. Always use lowercase for .jpg, .gif, .png, etc.
  • Do not use symbols ( # < > [ ] | { } _ ) in page names. The # symbol is reserved in HTML code to signify links to a specific area of a page. For more information on technical restrictions, please refer to MediaWiki manual.
  • Do not use a forward slash (/). The forward slash symbol (/) is reserved in our software code to signify a separation between sub-pages. Using the symbol on a page name will result in a page being a subpage.
  • Avoid using a period (aka full-stop) (.) at the end of a page name. In certain cases having a period at the end of your page name can cause some very unexpected and unwanted results. This is not a requirement as this only occurs when the page is viewed with certain web-browsers.

Article Pages

Character Pages

  • List characters by their most well-known real names and Earth designation whenever possible.
    • A character's real name consists of their legal birth name or the name given to them by their creator/guardian (like it is the case of non-standard sentient beings brought to life by unconventional methods like advanced science or magic), unless the character has rejected the name on grounds not attributable to insanity.
    • Alternate reality counterparts of a character are assumed to have the same real name unless there are in-story reasons to suspect otherwise.
      • For costumed identities that were used by multiple people with no clear visual distinction (Hobgoblin, Jack O'Lantern, Deathlok), alternate reality versions should have the character pages named after the alias and not assume the real name unless it was explicitly stated by an official source.
  • If the real name is known:
    • Real name consists of: "First name" "Surname" "Jr" (if applicable). None of the names are shortened in any way as long as the full version can be sourced. No assumptions on the full name applicable to a given shortened name can be made.
      • Examples: Monet St. Croix, Bruce Banner, James MacDonald Jr, Robert Drake (instead of Bobby)
    • Do not include degrees or titles in a character's name.
    • The precedence of the real name over codenames, titles and honorifics still applies when only the initial of the First name is known.
    • As proper names, Real names follow their own language's grammar rules regarding accent marks.
  • If only the surname part of the real name is known:
    • If the character doesn't have a recognizable codename, but has a specific rank, title or degree, the name of the article consists of the rank followed by the surname. The list of ranks includes, but is not limited to: "Agent, Captain, Doctor, General, Professor, Senator..."
    • If the character is referred to by an honorific title, the name of the article consists of the honorific "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Ms." (depending on gender and marital status) followed by the surname.
    • In case the character is too minor to be given its own page, use the Character Index instead (characters with known first and last names should never be listed on the index).
  • If the real name is not known:
    • Name consists of the most well-known (or latest) codename and the partial real name (or alias) in parenthesis. The most well-known codename is better than the most recent codename, and the real name is better than an alias, even if it seems less complete.
      • Example: Rogue (Anna Marie)
  • Multiple characters with the same name:
  • Clones:
    • Clones of other characters are by default named after their genetic template.
    • If the clone has been given an individual name or nickname, either by themselves or by their creator, that name is preferred to the template's name.
    • Alternate versions of clone characters who did not receive new names within their reality should still be named after their template.
    • When multiple clones of the same character exist within the same reality, disambiguate them by their creator, place or time of creation, or other distinguishing characteristics rather than naming them "Clone 1", "Clone 2" etc.

Items/Vehicles/Locations/Races Pages

Comic and Volume Pages

  • All volume pages are named by comic title and volume number. Volume number is required, even if it is Volume 1 and Volume 2 does not yet exist. Do not use the # character in the title. If a volume is canceled, it remains until it is superseded by a new volume. In that case, the canceled series is renamed with "(Canceled)" in its title.
  • All comic pages are named by comic title, volume number, and issue number. Volume number is required, even if it is Volume 1 and Volume 2 does not yet exist. Do not use the # character in the title.
  • Page names, volume and comic numbers should be consistent with other related comics and based on indicia, common usage and Marvel's current naming convention. When choosing a page name, the indicia title should be given more weight than others, although case-by-case exceptions may apply when the indicia is deemed odd.
  • Examples:
    • The indicia title for Venom (Sony) #1 is "Custom Sony Pictures 2018 Venom English Comic," but the cover title has been favored for clarity.
    • The first eight issues of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man use the indicia title "Ultimate Spider-Man," but their cover title has been prioritized for their article names for consistency with the rest of the volume.

Movie Pages

Television Series Pages

  • All episode pages are named by series name, season number, and episode number. Season number is required, even if it is Season 1 and Season 2 does not yet exist. Do not use the # character in the title.

Novel Pages

  • Novels have the full title of the novel, with being "(novel)" following it in cases where there are other media with the same name.

Disambiguation Pages

  • Disambiguation pages are used for resolving ambiguous page titles to help a reader finding the desired page from other possible articles.

Files

Cover Images

Subject Images

Full Page Interior Images

  • Full page interior images may be named by the comic pagename and an appended, incremental number.
    • Example: Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 233 001.jpg, Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 233 002.png

Miscellaneous Notes

  • Avoid Abbreviations. The title of a file for Uncanny X-Men Volume 1, #20, should not be 'UXM120.jpg', but rather more fully written out like 'Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 20.jpg'. This helps our search feature to more easily locate these images later. It also avoids the possibility of conflicting names. The first example is ambiguous and could also be interpreted as Uncanny X-Men #120 or Ultimate X-Men, Volume 1, #20.
  • Use subpages. In order to keep related pages grouped together, sub-pages are often utilized. Sub-pages exist in the same namespace as their parent page and can usually be found from automatically generated links in corresponding article templates.
  • Some subpage examples include:
    • Character/Gallery
    • Team/Gallery
    • User/Blog
    • User/Collection
    • User/Favourites
    • User/Gallery
    • User/News
    • User/Sandbox
    • User/Wishlist


Please submit any questions regarding special circumstances or any other concerns to the Administrators for review and we will either establish a new, relevant convention or direct you to the existing convention that would be applicable in that case.

Thank you again!

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms
Advertisement